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gryphonseggI was so happy to read Seanan McGuire's name in this. She's one of several writers who planned to contribute a story to a YA faerie anthology and then pulled their stories when word got out that the editor refused to accept a "G-rated" story because it was about a same sex romance. The books of hers that I've read so far do strike me as pretty heteronormative (despite other qualities that I find sufficiently redeeming) in a "just didn't think about it" sort of way. I was really pleased to find out that she won't stand for outright bigotry.
I was already a fan McGuire's non-YA series (didn't even know she was interested in writing for the YA market, actually) because it works with a lot of the possibilities I like about urban fantasy while dodging most of the things I dislike about the genre as it has developed. The central character is a woman who is not defined by her sexuality or her relationships with men, abusive and hyper-domineering male figures aren't portrayed as admirable and heroic, and multiple female characters other than the main one are allowed to be complex and sympathetic. In addition to everything else I like about these books, there's something going on in the individual installments and the big picture that I think is too often neglected in all genres: mother-daughter relationships are according a level of importance and attention that is usually reserved for father-son relationships or occasionally father-daughter relationships in fantasy and adventure-oriented stories. That doesn't mean they're idealized; a lot of the relationships between actual mothers and their daughters are strained, and those between older and younger female characters who might have consciously or unconsciously built up a mother-daughter-like dynamic are often just plain weird. But they're not toxic or strained in the stereotypical ways that are so much more common in fiction than in real life. All too often, fiction-- even fiction that is written by women for women, with a woman as the main character-- has only two types for mothers, or for all older women, to be shoe-horned into: blandly pleasant, passive background character and cruel, abusive caricature of The Bad Mother. Women are much more complicated than that, and therefore women's relationships are also more complicated than that. I'm glad McGuire portrays that in books because I don't see nearly as much acknowledgment of it in fiction as I should.
I was already a fan McGuire's non-YA series (didn't even know she was interested in writing for the YA market, actually) because it works with a lot of the possibilities I like about urban fantasy while dodging most of the things I dislike about the genre as it has developed. The central character is a woman who is not defined by her sexuality or her relationships with men, abusive and hyper-domineering male figures aren't portrayed as admirable and heroic, and multiple female characters other than the main one are allowed to be complex and sympathetic. In addition to everything else I like about these books, there's something going on in the individual installments and the big picture that I think is too often neglected in all genres: mother-daughter relationships are according a level of importance and attention that is usually reserved for father-son relationships or occasionally father-daughter relationships in fantasy and adventure-oriented stories. That doesn't mean they're idealized; a lot of the relationships between actual mothers and their daughters are strained, and those between older and younger female characters who might have consciously or unconsciously built up a mother-daughter-like dynamic are often just plain weird. But they're not toxic or strained in the stereotypical ways that are so much more common in fiction than in real life. All too often, fiction-- even fiction that is written by women for women, with a woman as the main character-- has only two types for mothers, or for all older women, to be shoe-horned into: blandly pleasant, passive background character and cruel, abusive caricature of The Bad Mother. Women are much more complicated than that, and therefore women's relationships are also more complicated than that. I'm glad McGuire portrays that in books because I don't see nearly as much acknowledgment of it in fiction as I should.
